Tags: black holes, light
Categories: Comparisons
An example of simile and metaphor in public science discourse:
"A black hole is a region of space where you have just crammed so much stuff into a such a small space, that gravity kind of goes into overdrive, it grabs onto everything, and it won't let go, and that includes light, so even if a light beam goes into a black hole it just kind of gets sucked in and stays there."
Prof. Andrew Pontzen
Prof. Andrew Pontzen (Professor of Cosmology, UCL) was being intervieed by Marnie Chesterton on an episode ('Mapping the universe') of BBC Inside Science. Marnie glossedthe black hole as
"The ultimate waste disposal unit, stuff gets sucked in and can't escape."
